Top 10 Canadian Stocks To Watch For 2018

Energy Storage Agreements (ESAs) will upend the coal generating business. I have been traditionally skeptical of the concept pushed by greenies that wind and solar will replace coal and nuclear fuel, and that all we need are windmills and solar panels for as far as the eye can see. Their biggest challenge is the intermittent nature of their generating footprint vs. the grid’s base load requirements satisfied by coal and nuclear. Over the past several years, I have written about this serious flaw. Enter ESAs.

Regulators in California are behind a new business of providing utility-scale back-up battery storage at power generating facilities. Canadian-based AltaGas (OTCPK:ATGFF) recently announced a 10-year Energy Storage Resource Adequacy Purchase Agreement with Southern California Edison SCE, a subsidiary of Edison International (NYSE:EIX). A recap of the scope of the contract is described below, from ATGFF’s press release:

Canada-based Encana Corp. (NYSE: ECA) was the eighth top oil company stock in 2016, with a 131% gain over the year. ECA and its subsidiaries focus on developing, exploring, producing, and marketing natural gas, liquefied natural gas, and oil in North America.

Encana Corp. (NYSE: ECA) is rated Buy with an unchanged price target of $16. The EPS estimate for 2017 was lowered from $0.42 to $0.34, and the 2018 estimate was also lowered, from $1.47 to $1.28. The shares ended the weekat $11.44, in a 52-week range of $4.90 to $13.85. The consensus 12-month price target is $14.95.

A long term performance chart shows shares of small cap SUPERVALU now underperforming large cap Kroger Co (NYSE: KR) while shares of large cap Whole Foods Market, Inc (NASDAQ: WFM) and mid cap Safeway Inc (NYSE: SWY) appear to be back to where they started at:

[By Peter Graham]

A long term performance chart shows shares of SUPERVALU underperforming the underperformance ofmid caps Whole Foods Market, Inc (NASDAQ: WFM) and Safeway Inc (NYSE: SWY). while large capKroger Co (NYSE: KR)had outperformed up until the last two years when performance has been more mixed:

Top 10 Canadian Stocks To Watch For 2018: Rhino Resource Partners LP(RNO)

Advisors’ Opinion:

[By Alexis Xydias]

Investors are regaining confidence, squeezing pessimists who say the economy remains sluggish outside of Germany and point to record-low trading volume as a lack of conviction in the Euro Stoxxs 61 percent rally of the past two years. Besides gains in stocks from Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA to Renault SA (RNO), yields on Spanish and Italian bonds have declined to a two-year low compared with German bunds and the euro has strengthened 4.6 percent to $1.35 in the past six months.

When an investor thinks of Canadian gold mining stocks, NovaGold Resources Inc. (USA) (NYSEMKT:NG) and Yamana Gold Inc. (USA) (NYSE:AUY) are often the first names to come to mind. And well they should. Yamana Gold is a $2.5 billion giant, and NovaGold Resources seems to have been around forever.

Those two icons aren’t the only way to tap into Canada’s sizeable gold mining industry though. There’s a small, up-and-coming player called Taranis Resources Inc. (OTCMKTS:TNREF, TSX:TRO) that could end up becoming another key fixture of the country’s mining landscape.

Taranis develops mineral deposits into mine-ready projects. Its primary project right now — and it’s enough to keep the company plenty busy for the next several years — is the Thor property located near Trout Lake, British Columbia. NI 43-101 resource reports (indicated and inferred)suggest Thor contains 6.9 million ounces of silver, 35,000 ounces gold, 57 million pounds of lead, 79.4 million pounds of zinc and 3.3 Million pounds of copper (roughly a 14 million ounce silver equivalent (“AgEq”) deposit*) laying in wait in a way that lends itself to the establishment of a low-cost, open pit mining operation. That’s roughly $300 million worth of marketable metals, and the estimates have been steadily getting bigger as Tanaris does more survey work.

And 2017 could be a real breakout year for Taranis, as a lot of the work that’s been done to date starts to mean something. It’s got big exploration plans for this year… this spring/summer to be exact.

The Phase 1 program was completed in September of last year, setting the stage for a more defined and much bigger Phase 2 definition-drilling within the next several weeks. This Phase 2 definition drilling slated for the middle of this year will drill down to between 6000 m and 10,000 m.

These so-called first generation target areas are generally well understood areas based on sound geological information includ

Recreational vehicles have hit a stretch of popularity that the industry hasn’t seen since the 1970s, and Thor Industries (NYSE:THO) has found itself in the right place at the right time. The RV specialist has made every effort it can to boost its growth to take advantage of favorable conditions, both by ramping up its existing internal operations and by looking for strategic combinations like its recent acquisition of industry peer Jayco. Coming into Monday’s fiscal second-quarter financial report, Thor investors were looking for very strong growth, and even though the company largely delivered on that front, some concerns about the pace of further gains throughout the rest of the fiscal year weighed on Thor stock after the report.

[By Lisa Levin]

Shares of Thor Industries, Inc. (NYSE: THO) got a boost, shooting up 14 percent to $102.70 as the company reported stronger-than-expected results for its first quarter on Monday.

3M Co.’s (NYSE: MMM) latest quarterly earnings report is expected on Tuesday. The consensus estimates are $2.06 in earnings per share (EPS) and $7.47 billion in revenue. Shares were trading most recently at $191.50, in a 52-week range of $163.17 to $193.50. The consensus price target is $190.50.

[By Paul Ausick]

3M Company (NYSE: MMM) traded up 0.75% at $191.74. The stock’s 52-week range is $163.05 to $192.14, and the high was posted this afternoon. Volume was about 40% above the daily average of around 1.8 million shares. The company announced a $2 billion acquisition of the personal-safety unit of Johnson Controls.

[By Chris Lange]

3M Company (NYSE: MMM) is set to report its second-quarter results on Tuesday. The analysts consensus estimates call for EPS of $2.54 and $7.86 billion in revenue. Shares of 3M were changing hands at $211.07 at Fridays close. The consensus price target is $205.09, and the 52-week range is $163.85 to $214.57.

Benzinga's newsdesk monitors options activity to notice unusual patterns. These large volume (and often out of the money) trades were initially published intraday in Benzinga Professional . These trades were placed during Thursday’s regular session.

[By Chris Lange]

The stock posting the largest daily percentage gain in the S&P 500 ahead of the close Thursday was NRG Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NRG) which rose over 5% to $22.20. The stocks 52-week range is $9.84 to $23.36. Volume was over 35 million compared to its average volume of 5.8 million.

[By Lisa Levin]

Non-cyclical consumer goods & services sector was the top gainer in the US market on Wednesday. Top gainers in the sector included Cia Energetica de Minas Gerais CEMIG-ADR (NYSE: CIG), Companhia Paranaense de Energia (ADR) (NYSE: ELP), and NRG Energy Inc (NYSE: NRG).

NRG Energy was the Biggest Loser on Nov. 10, and the Hot Stock on Nov. 4.

Top 10 Canadian Stocks To Watch For 2018: Prestige Brand Holdings Inc.(PBH)

Advisors’ Opinion:

[By Ben Levisohn]

Castor believes the cash has disappeared into working capital, which has grown from 23% to more than 50% since 2008. Comparable company PrestigeBrand (PBH) uses 11%; Unilever(UL) and Colgate-Palmolive(CL) far less.

The contract awards are for the jack-ups West Elara and West Linus with ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS (COP) for work in the Greater Ekofisk area. The total additional backlog for the new contract awards is estimated to be about $1.4 billion, excluding performance bonuses.

[By Chris Dier-Scalise]

Among the brands being sold were Alcoa Corporation (NYSE: AA) and Ford Motor Company(NYSE: F), which both paid out dividends in December. The financial and oil sectors also experienced a sell-off to finish 2016. Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE: WFC) and Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C) were net sold as each reached new year-to-date highs and investors unloaded ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) and Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) as their prices normalized with the rise in the price of oil.

[By Shanthi Rexaline]

Phillips 66 is a multi-national company headquartered in Westchase, Houston. It was spun off from ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) in 1917.

Stock Return (Since 2012): 144.1 percent.

[By Matthew DiLallo, Tyler Crowe, and Jason Hall]

Oil prices haven’t gotten off to the fast start many expected, falling around 6% on average during the first quarter of the year. That slump came despite OPEC’s best efforts since producing nations have achieved fairly good compliance on their planned output cuts. That said, despite the lackluster oil market, we still see some interestingopportunities in the oil market. Three stocks we really like right now are DistributionNOW(NYSE:DNOW),Phillips 66(NYSE:PSX), andConocoPhillips(NYSE:COP), which all should do well in the current oil market.

The head underwriters for the ZTO IPO are Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS). Also working on the deal are China Renaissance, Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE ADR: CS), and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM).

[By Paul R. La Monica]

European banks worse off than 2008? Lamensdorf is concerned about the exposure to bad loans (especially energy company debt) held by big banks such as Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Credit Suisse (CS) and Deutsche Bank (DB). He’s shorting all three.

[By Money Morning News Team]

That’s why Krauth predicts the price of gold will hit $1,400 by the end of the year. Many analysts from banks likeCredit SuisseGroup AG (NYSE ADR: CS) even see gold going as high as $1,500.

The latest credit default swap (CDS) data from BMO Capital Markets indicate a number of investors are growing increasingly concerned about the one-year outlook for capital markets. In a new report, analyst Mark Steele discussed the recent surge in one-year CDS activity, and what it means for the market.

Shares of Sol Gel Technologies Ltd (NASDAQ:SLGL) have been assigned a consensus broker rating score of 1.50 (Buy) from the four analysts that cover the company, Zacks Investment Research reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a hold recommendation and three have assigned a stron

From my own career change to the stories I hear from my clients and workshop students, often we think we want to change careers when the problem is our work environment instead. If you find yourself stuck, unsure what to do next, or t

Analysts expect Crane Co. (NYSE:CR) to report sales of $842.46 million for the current quarter, Zacks Investment Research reports. Five analysts have issued estimates for Crane’s earnings, with the highest sales estimate coming in at $867.00 million and the lowest estimate coming in at $819